Ulden Mar
by thek3vin
Summary: Zendikar lullmage Ulden Mar doesn't get much time to settle into the life of a planeswalker before he's pulled into a battle against the ultimate evil of the multiverse.
1. Chapter 1

_I remember it looked at me with too many eyes. It saw too much. And when it opened its mouth, and it pulled me in, I was pulled in every direction at once. It was the opposite of gravity and though there was no light to see I saw time. But something exploded inside of me in that moment and suddenly light and time became one. I didn't move, but I walked. And then it was over._

Ulden awoke to a Zendikar much calmer than he had been expecting. The word for "calm" in Zendikarii had a very different meaning than it did on most planes, but he had grown up knowing a natural world, even if it did tend to get restless. Despite the peace around him, something was bothering him. He felt damp.

He looked at his hand and pulled off the leather glove. His hand was glistening with sweat. _Wait a minute, isn't it winter?_ The sun was shining brightly through the thick leaves of a tree above his head. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and pulled himself up to the trunk of the tree. As he oriented himself he noticed that the copse around him was on something of an incline. A few small cliffs jutted out here and there, but it was mostly a gentle slope that he tracked with his eyes from left to right going up until the treeline closer up obscured his view of the ground. He stood up and pulled off his cloak and more of his winter garb.

He tried to think back to his last memory before waking up, but he found himself unable to organize his thoughts. His memory felt frail and slow, like he was an infant drawing the very first pictures in his mind. His name was Ulden and he was a lullmage. He remembered his mother and father, and he became sad, but he wasn't sure why. Sifting around his mind made him very tired, and he drifted back out of consciousness as the phantoms of his parents floated into the mist.

His eyes were met with darkness when they opened again. He hoped it had only been a few hours and not a few days this time. The sun was peaking out from the mountains ahead. That wasn't a good sign. He spent a few hours stretching out and trying to find some food to eat; he had woken up starving. By dawn he was growing more and more anxious about how confusing his situation was. On Zendikar, unfamiliar territory was not... unfamiliar territory. He was used to being lost. But there were supposed to be people around him, he was sure about that. He had been part of something larger, he was sure of that. A common goal of some sort...

It didn't take long to find a tree that seemed like it would be easy enough to climb to get a little bit more info of his surroundings. He pushed the thin higher branches away and pulled himself above the canopy, shielding his eyes from the morning sun and the unusually strong wind. The forest ended a half-mile away; grasslands and trees stretched down a long slope that curved back up into mountains far in the distance. He looked to his right and saw the same thing. The left was similar. He was in the center of a valley, but it seemed to be roughly circular.

Ulden worked his way back to the ground and mulled over what he had seen as he started to dig through his pack to see what tools he had to work with. He knew the Roil. It worked in three dimensions. If the ground had been pulled up on all sides, it had probably been pulled far above sea level into the sky, which meant he was trapped; possibly alone. That thought faded away and he returned to the Roil. _Three dimensions..._ The thought seemed simplistic. Incomplete.

Reality seemed to flicker. Ulden's mind raced. And then he was standing on a beach. In front of him were countless graves following a hill rising up from the sea. And looming across them was a massive shadow with a form that made him freeze in place. His mind was both blank and full to the brim with thought as he witnessed the shadow shrink back to the sea. The sun came into view over head and he realized he had been standing in place for hours contemplating what was becoming a more and more familiar scene.

He turned around and saw the inconceivably huge figure of Ulamog trapped in stone above him. Reality flickered again.

He was on his knees. He was on the top of a hill in a world he'd never seen before. It was dark and the air was thick with smog. In the distance he could see a large camp. There were humans breaking rocks with large pickaxes in groups around the tents. Towering over the working men and women was an unnatural looking creature with winding skeletal arms each holding long whips. Its hunched back was covered with spikes that looked as sharp as razor blades and its feet were cloven and tipped with cruel talons. It turned its head directly towards Ulden and its red eyes seemed to glow.

The thing knew something Ulden didn't. And it was angry.


	2. Chapter 2

_Snake-like metal cables whirred as they uncoiled from somewhere in the creature's chest. Its metallic feet rose from the ground as it the cables dug into the ground below it. It took an asymmetric stride towards me and covered a third of the distance across the wide plain I had seen it from. I was aware of all this, but all I could see was the bright red light of its eyes piercing into the center of my forehead, feeling around for something. Searing pain shot through my spine and out to my limbs for minutes or hours or days in malicious bursts. The now-familiar void of unconsciousness enveloped me._  
 _  
_Ulden awoke with the dim light of dawn in the strange world. For a moment his heart leapt as he saw the horrific creature looming above him. He realized that the creature was frozen in place; or at least it seemed that way at first. Upon closer inspection sparks of electricity jolted across the exposed metal wiring under its chest plate at frequent intervals. There was a faint whirring coming from the thing, and it was posed in an advancing position. With fascination his hand wandered towards the nearest reaching cable-leg.

"I wouldn't touch that. Well, _I_ would, but you shouldn't."

Startled as he was, the voice behind him was so calm that it pacified him before he had turned around. A few yards behind him was a man made of what looked like pure silver. He had huge shoulderpads that bent up to partially cover the sides of his head, and his chest seemed to be made of platemail. Ulden knew of artifice, but there was no artifact built so... perfectly. He quickly concluded what stood before him was a man in a suit powered by magic.

"How do you produce a voice with metal? That's the only part I can't figure out."

The being smiled a sad smile. "Interested in artifice? Or perhaps just an inquisitive mind. In either case wouldn't you sooner know where you are or anything else about your situation? I've invested a significant amount of time making sure I'd know when you woke up."

Ulden rubbed his eyes for a second. "Yes, of course, please explain. I'm sorry I'm having trouble staying... here. In time. I'm myself but I'm not quite in my body. Don't be afraid to tell me I sound mad, I'm used to it... I think..."

The metal man looked upon Ulden with disarmingly apparent empathy. His face was only partially articulated, yet his eyes were full of wistfulness and suffering.

"First of all, I am called Karn."

"Ulden," He replied. He wasn't sure what else to say.

"There is much to explain to you. The best place to start would be to deal with the nature of the multiverse. The planet on which you grew up exists on one material plane among countless others."

"And we're on a different one."

"Intuitive," Karn remarked. "You and are among a precious few beings in the multiverse that can travel between the planes. I have the same capabilities."

The notion hadn't exactly sunk in when Karn asked his next question.

"Do you remember the liberation of Sea Gate?"

Ulden thought for a moment. "I don't, no. But I know I was there."

"That confirms a theory I had. Ulamog and Kozilek were defeated nearly 20 Zendikar-years ago. From what I gather you've been unconscious for most of that time. I found you several months ago." The metal man reached out and with surprising grace and gentleness plucked a single hair from Ulden's head. The strand shone silver like Karn himself. "You've aged a few years, but not 20. There's something special about your spark; the thing thing that enables you to walk between the planes. I have something to ask of you for that reason."

Ulden had no response.

"I ask that you travel with me to the edge of time, to the plane of Equilor, where I hope to find aid against an indescribable enemy," he said. He motioned to the metal creature nearly frozen in time behind Ulden. "I'm not one to explain things away with luck, but while I was monitoring outposts of the enemy I happened upon you and was able to intervene. I left that beast here to make a point. It is one cog of a massive and nigh-unstoppable machine that threatens all life in the multiverse."

It meant nothing to him, but the next word made him shiver.

"Phyrexia."


	3. Chapter 3

_My head is beginning to clear. But something is very different. I remember Sea Gate. I remember fighting. And then one of those things... I remember teeth and tentacles, I remember all being lost. I went through something that Ulden Mar didn't survive. But I could still remember him. I wasn't ready to let him go. And whatever I was, there was fire within me. So wherever I had gone, I pulled me back into myself and then I made me walk back to somewhere._

Karn had gently gripped Ulden's shoulder with his large hand and 'walked them away the enslaved workers and the frozen Phyrexian demon.

"It's good that you made it through the Blind Eternities awake. You will master navigating them in time."

The feeling of being between planes had reminded him of the vague trauma of the Eldrazi that he had tucked into the corner of his mind, but he was determined to keep himself somewhat oriented as they planeswalked. He was in Tazeem. He could hear the Halimar tides lapping at the shore. He was home.

"I have brought you here because it seems like the only fair place to ask you to ask you it you will join me," Karn said. "Of course you still have questions, and I can answer many of them in time."

"That's a bit of an understatement, isn't it?" yelled Ulden, suddenly angry. Karn's strange and deliberate patience was making Ulden anxious. "Do you understand that I'm still trying to figure out who I am and what in Emeria's name is going on and you're asking me to go on some nonsensical trip through space? Forget "Phyrexia", how about who the hell are you? _What_ are you?"

"I was created—" Karn started.

Ulden wasn't finished. "I'm a lullmage! My identity is being the guy who tames the Roil and you want to take me somewhere where there IS NO ROIL? This is where I live. 'Zendikar' is where I belong."

"I think you will find that you are know longer simply a denizen of one plane. We planeswalkers all experience wanderlust eventually."

"Well I greatly appreciate the concern for my emotional well-being".

"There is something I would like to show you before I leave you alone, then. If you will permit me."

Ulden could feel mana being manipulated around him, but it felt odd. Karn wasn't gesticulating or muttering incantations to focus his magic. He simply pointed at the air in front of him and it split open with a loud crack.

Through the tear was a vision of horror. Black Glistening Oil dripped from the hedrons floating in the sky, and evil beasts made of machinery were strip mining the beautiful geography of his world.

"The Phyrexians will do to your home what they did to mine, given time. They will spread through the multiverse, taking root wherever they are able. It is their nature to corrupt life with their unnatural artifice until it is unrecognizable.

"At one point they were all but defeated. I was foolish. The only trace of their existence left in the multiverse was in the one place I could not find it. Within my own heart. I payed for that mistake. Now there is no room for mistakes.

"Most planeswalkers are driven by their own self-preservation, but if you do not find motivation there, perhaps the nobler notion of saving your kin will help you make this decision."

The notion _was_ awfully noble.


	4. Chapter 4

"Within a plane of existence, the observable universe extends around the observer in a sphere. The radius of that sphere is equal to the age of the sphere multiplied by the speed of information within that sphere. So how does one travel to a location which they not observing?"

"Well," Ulden began. "The..."

The faintest mechanical whirring could be heard as Karn raised an eyebrow. "You're in luck," he said. "That was a rhetorical question. The answer is, colloquially, is 'you don't'. But what you and I have is inner sight. The trans-dimensional ability to peer into other worlds beyond worlds. And we do this the same way anybody does anything. With mana."

"So planeswalking is casting a spell."

"Certainly not. You see, mana isn't magical oil you pump out of the ground to fuel your spells."

"No, we don't like magical oil," Ulden interjected.

Karn frowned. "No, we don't. Mana is, when you look closely at it, is not a 'thing'. It doesn't have a corresponding 'Mana Particle'. It's better to imagine mana as an event. It's simply the power of 'What Happens'. It flows across time and space in beautiful patterns like veins reaching across spacetime. We become entwined with the mana that connects the multiverse to "see" within the Blind Eternities."

"About that. How exactly are they blind?"

"Mana is the cosmic observer. The mana 'sees' the other worlds and we 'see' the mana. The Blind Eternities don't see anything, because the mana defines where space isn't instead of where space is. The Planeswalker Spark allows you to transcend dualistic ways of thinking. You understand that the opposite of what is-in other words What Isn't-must also be. Having attained this understanding you gain the ability, as my master Urza would describe it, 'to swim through the air'".

"You haven't told me much about him."

"His is mostly a very sad story. One for another day."

"Is he the one who discovered all this? You said he was a man of science."

"He was taught, but in a way that was shrouded in mysticism and religion. Urza sought to decode the ancient mysteries wherever he saw them. When he saw a bird, he imagined a machine that would mirror the beautiful symmetry of flapping wings so closely that it could fly. You should understand that this is why we oppose Phyrexia. Urza was a flawed man, but he taught me to revere life. His artifice was his way of glorifying the aesthetic wonders of the mana flowing through us all. Phyrexia despises life. The Phyrexian desecrates itself, sacrificing anything that will yield more power. It is a conflict between opposites in the same way you fought the Eldrazi. And both threats are, by my calculation, unsolvable problems. The existence of one side implies the other. My only approach is therefore to travel to the very edge of the Multiverse, where the lines between opposites begin to fade. The beings there are our only hope.

"It will be a long journey. We'll need to properly orient ourselves. The simplest way to do that will be to begin at the Nexus of the Multiverse. A place I didn't expect to revisit so soon, if it all," concluded Karn.

"Are you going to walk us there, then?" asked the lullmage.

"I thought I might have you do it. Try to find the place in the center. It's the one connected to everywhere else."

"And then from there we'll 'walk to Equilor?"

"If you imagine the Blind Eternities as a spider web reaching between the planes, there are only a few thin strands of mana connecting directly across from the center to the edge. Such a journey would be impossible for the most accomplished Planeswalker. It is only feasible to travel there by 'hopping' across the worlds that connect between the two. Our route will become more clear if we begin at the center. The Nexus is your North Star."

"On Zendikar we have an East Star."

"Well let's travel East then."

They winked away.

"I don't know where we are, but it's strange and it's wet."

That's what Ulden would have said if he wasn't underwater. Instead, he said "I-" and then coughed as his mouth filled with seawater.


End file.
